Nato air strike in Afghanistan 'kills scores of Taliban militants and civilians'

As many as 40 Afghan civilians were feared to be among the 90 people killed in
a Nato air strike that hit two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban.

Members of the security forces walk at the site of a NATO airstrike which destroyed two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Kunduz Photo: AFP

By Ben Farmer in Kabul

12:38PM BST 04 Sep 2009

Afghan witnesses said the tankers were hit in the early hours of Friday in the northern province of Kunduz as a crowd of villagers gathered round one of the stolen vehicles to collect fuel when it became stranded in a river.

Mahbubullah Sayedi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said: "Some 90 people were killed in this incident and most of them are Taliban.

"A small number of the casualties are local civilians, including a few children who had come to take free fuel."

A spokesman for Nato-led forces said its planes had blown up the trucks and killed a large number of insurgent fighters, but were investigating claims civilians had also died.

The United Nations chief in Afghanistan said he was "very concerned" about reports of civilians casualties. "As an immediate priority, everything possible must be done to ensure that people wounded by this attack are being properly cared for, and that families of the deceased are getting all the help they need," he said.

However, a statement from the German army, which has troops in Kunduz, said 56 militants had been killed, adding that civilians had not been hurt.

Claims of civilian casualties are fiercely contested because they have become a source of intense friction between Afghan officials and President Hamid Karzai's western backers.

Taliban militants have been accused of using civilians as human shields, or deliberately provoking battles in populated areas to incur civilian casualties for propaganda.

The incident is the biggest accusation of civilian deaths since General Stanley McChrystal took charge of Nato-led forces vowing he was more interested in protecting Afghans than hunting the Taliban.

New tactical advice has cut the number of air strikes in recent months.

The Nato spokesman said two tankers carrying fuel for international forces were stolen at 10pm on Thursday evening by a band of insurgents which included Chechen fighters.

They were later spotted on the banks of the Kunduz river, near the Tajikistan border, and blown up "after assessments that only insurgents were present".

Mohammad Daud, 32, who was helping ferry wounded to hospital, said the hijackers had been trying to transport the tankers across a river to villages in Angorbagh.

When one became stuck in the river, the fighters called for villagers to take the fuel.

He said: "Villagers rushed to the fuel tanker with any available container that they had, including water buckets and pots for cooking oil.

"There were 10 to 15 Taliban on top of the tanker. This was when they were bombed. Everyone around the fuel tanker died." Mohammad Sarwar, a tribal elder in the province, said Taliban fighters had hijacked the tankers and were offering fuel to a crowd of people when the crowd was bombed.

"We blame both the Taliban and the government for this." Afghan officials said Chechens were among the dead.

In May, the Afghan government accused United States warplanes of killing 140 civilians in a bombing in Farah province.

A US investigation later put the civilian death toll at 26, though an independent investigation by human rights workers said it was closer to 90.